Not content to ever take “no” for an answer, Personhood USA has announced that it is returning to Mississippi to have another go at forcing a vote on an amendment that would grant all rights of legal personhood to fertilized eggs.

Personhood Mississippi filed paperwork for another ballot initiative, and the language of it looks very familiar to those who rejected the 2011 version. Amendment 26 read: “Initiative #26 would amend the Mississippi Constitution to define the word “person” or “persons,” as those terms are used in Article III of the state constitution, to include every human being from the moment of fertilization, cloning, or the functional equivalent thereof.”

According to Parents Against Personhood, this year’s version is just a little different. This year, it’s all about God. “The right to life begins at conception. All human beings, at every stage of development, are unique, created in God’s image and shall have equal rights as persons under the law.”

Opponents of the personhood push are frustrated that the same battle is being forced on them again. “Mississippi voters have already spoken: Health care decisions should be left to a woman, her family, her doctor, and her faith – not politicians. Mississippians expect real solutions to the real crises facing our state—not government intrusion into private medical decisions,” said Planned Parenthood Southeast Director of Public Policy Felicia Brown-Williams via statement. “Given Mississippi’s high rates of infant mortality, unintended pregnancy and teen births, it is time to focus on expanding access to affordable, quality health care.”

The words have become a standard refrain on the sidewalks in front of Jackson Women’s Health Organization (JWHO) on the days where abortions are to be performed. While doctors and clinic staff scramble to keep open the only public abortion clinic in Mississippi, nothing changed for Operation Save America and their followers, who were once more on the streets of Jackson.

Now nearly ten months into their year long “States of Refuge” campaign, Operation Save America has yet to actually create an “abortion-free state” as they say they intend. Instead, they have succeeded mainly in harassing doctors and patients, terrifying little children, and annoying parents who would prefer their sons and daughters not be exposed to highly magnified and gory photo-shopped posters of “fetal remains.”

The group arrived in Mississippi directly after the election with plans to protest at Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the state’s sole public abortion provider. However, the protesters also set their sites on local high schools, which they picketed with their signs as students headed in to class for the day.

Cal Zastrow, one of the “States of Refuge” organizers, said they needed to inform high school students of the “truth” of abortion because he saw too many teen girls arriving at the clinic.

“High School girls are coming in here and killing babies, so we want to educate them before they come here and kill their children,” he told WLTB.tv. “Already this week, I’ve seen three different high school sweatshirts on girls in the city here come here and murder their children.”

Schools were forced to bring in additional security to deal with the activists, but otherwise their hands were tied, despite parental complaints.

Many of the anti-choice activists were from out of state, but one well-known local face joined the activities as well—Les Riley, the anti-choice presence behind Personhood Mississippi. Riley has promised another attempt at a Personhood amendment in 2014, and says he is already working on the language to make that happen. With Personhood supporter Phil Bryant in the governor’s office, it’s no surprise that Personhood will be rising again.

All attention is focused on JWHO, who is in danger of being closed due to a TRAP law passed in the state legislature during the 2012 session that requires hospital admitting privileges, something the clinic has been unable to obtain. Operation Save America has been gleefully counting down the days to January, when they believe the state will finally be abortion-free. Rusty Thomas told Christian News Network:

“They [JWHO] were kind of shrewd and were able to make adjustments, so that they could [be classified as] a medical facility to give them six months to comply,” he explained.

If the facility is not able to comply by January 16, 2013, it can be shut down by the state under the law.

“The state has the authority to step in and say, ‘Are you in compliance?’ If not, shut it down!” Thomas said.

Thomas even encourages the nation’s anti-choice community to come to Jackson to protest the 40th anniversary of the Roe v. Wade decision, believing the clinic’s closure could be timed to coincide.

Will JWHO make it to the 40th anniversary of Roe? At this point, the question once more rests in the hands of the courts. The Center for Reproductive Rights (CRR) has announced that the clinic has finally run out of options, and that every available hospital that could provide the necessary admitting privileges for clinic doctors has refused to consider doing so. According to the CRR’s legal filing, hospitals shied away from offering privileges pointing either to a prohibition against what they define as “elective abortions” within their own organization, or fear of reprisal from outside sources should they associate with the clinic. Refusals often read:

“The nature of your proposed medical practice is inconsistent with this Hospital’s policies and practices as concerns abortion and, in particular, elective abortions; … [and] The nature of your proposed medical practice would lead to both an internal and external disruption of the Hospital’s function and business within this community.”

CRR attorneys have filed a new motion against the law to stop it from going into effect, but as the year comes to a close it remains unclear if 2013 may in fact be the first year abortion won’t be—at least ostensibly—publicly accessible in all 50 states. (Ostensibly because access is determined by far more than just the existence of one clinic in a city, state, or locale of any size.)

As the courts consider whether the “undue burden” limits of Planned Parenthood v. Casey are finally met by ending access to abortion in Mississippi, harassment at the clinic is likely to escalate, especially in light of the anti-choice zealots who have already been on the sidewalks.

“Protesters” at the clinic itself have been a who’s who of jailed anti-choice terrorists, all congregated in one location. A self-congratulatory video compiled by Missionaries to the Preborn Iowa, who worked with OSA to harrass the patients and employees of JWHO (and yes, even the person who takes their medical waste), identifies many of those who “counseled” on the sidewalks of the clinic, such as Dan and Donna Holman, Cal Zastrow and his family, and others.

Dan Holman, member of “Missionaries to the Preborn Iowa” Holman advocates for “justifiable use of force,” claiming those who reject it as an option are “pro-life heretics.”

Flip Benham and Joe Scheidler are among the pro-life leaders who have publicly condemned Paul Hill for using force to save children. These men have done much good in the past, but they are in grave error regarding the use of force. To condemn the use of force to protect unborn children is a tacit admission that their lives are not worth defending. It is to say that that some have more of a Right to Life than others. It is a frank admission that pre-born children are somehow sub-human. If they truly believe the life of the unborn is worth less than the life of the abortionist than why defend the babies at all? Some say that the abortionist might repent and become another Bernard Nathanson, or a Carol Everett. How many children is their salvation worth? Would you give your sons or daughters to a baby-killer hoping he will come to repentance? Would we hold this principal true for any other serial killer? The abortionist’s salvation is not worth the life of one innocent child!

Dan has been arrested numerous times, including an arrest for an outstanding warrant after placing a “citizen’s arrest” on a girl who tried to spray paint over the graphic images on his van. His wife Donna has been arrested several times for harassment in front of an Iowa Planned Parenthood, with courts eventually recommending psychological screening, which her husband refused on her behalf. Michigan’s Cal Zastrow and his wife have been long involved with the “rescue” movement and subsequent arrests, which he dismisses by arguing that “Whatever consequences befall us for rescuing are trivial compared to children getting their limbs and heads cut off.” Randy Crawford also has been cited for harassment outside Planned Parenthood clinics in Iowa, running in the same circles as the Holmans.

The Holmans, Crawford, Zastrow, and others had already toured the state together to urge a vote for Amendment 26, then touting themselves as “Pro-Life Mississippi.” Now, once more hitting the streets of Jackson, the band is working to pressure and harass anyone associated with the clinic, even if it’s just residents of the same city on their way to class at school.

The hospitals have turned down the requests for admitting prividges based in part on the potential “external disruptions” that could be caused by being associated with pregnancy terminations. Now, not only is the clinic in danger of being forced to close, but they have to worry that the outside agitators — sensing a potential victory — may grow even bolder, too.

Gov. Phil Bryant, however, doesn’t seem to be taking the hint. First he signed a bill that would likely close the state’s only abortion clinic, declaring he wants Mississippi to be “abortion-free” (the supporters of the bill, who were less blatant, were trying to claim it wasn’t about cutting off access to abortion, but about “women’s safety.”). Then, he had his Lieutenant Governor block the appointment of a well-known doctor from the state’s board of health — despite the fact that he had already been serving on the board — because of the doctor’s association with the clinic.

Now, he’s making it undeniably clear that this is a holy mission that his term as governor is about ending abortion at all costs, and that he views anyone of the opposite party as an enemy who is intent on murdering babies.

Speaking on a conservative radio show hosted by Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council, Bryant declared that all Democrats are focused on “kill[ing] children,” and that it is their highest priority.

Days after he signed a law that would effectively shut down his state’s only remaining abortion-performing clinic, Mississippi Gov. Phil Bryant accused Democrats of having one mission in life: “to abort children.”

“The hypocrisy of the left that now tried to kill this bill, that says that I should have never signed it, the true hypocrisy is that their one mission in life is to abort children, is to kill children in the womb,” Bryant told conservative radio host Tony Perkins on Tuesday.

Is this really what the citizens of Mississippi signed on for when they chose Bryant as governor?

]]>The more people show they aren’t interested in the radical agenda of the “Personhood” movement, the more it just seems to egg (ha!) them on. In the wake of a crushing defeat in Mississippi, the fertilized egg as person backers are taking a new approach, creating a political action group to “help elect anti-abortion candidates and to educate voters.”

I’m not entirely sure how one can propose a bill declaring life begins at fertilization while omitting references to fertilization, but I’m sure it’s not the wackiest thing the movement has tried to accomplish.

Anti-choice activists who support the egg-as-person movement in Mississippi have a new target — Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour. Yesterday, the Republican made news saying he was “concerned” with Initiative 26, which would grant legal rights to fertilized eggs. Now, Prop 26 supporters are accusing Barbour of being wooed by money, not conscience.

Haley Barbour, the conservative, pro-life governor of Mississippi, surprised and infuriated supporters of the state’s anti-abortion “personhood” initiative on Wednesday when he told MSNBC’s Chuck Todd that he might be voting against it. The Personhood USA campaign retaliated on Thursday by pointing out that Barbour took campaign contributions from Monsanto and Pfizer — pharmaceutical companies that manufacture the abortion pill.

“We thought it was really strange that he would oppose this measure, since we have the support of nearly every other politician in the state, both Democrat and Republican. So we did a little digging,” Jennifer Mason, spokesperson for Personhood USA, told HuffPost. “We discovered that he has received campaign contributions from the makers of the abortion pill as recently as 2007.”

Pfizer makes Misoprostol tablets, one of the two pills taken to end early pregnancy, which would be banned if Mississippi voters pass the personhood amendment at the ballots next week. According to a campaign contributions database, Pfizer contributed $7,000 to Barbour’s reelection campaign in 2006 and Monsanto, Pfizer’s parent company, contributed $1,000.

Barbour’s office did not immediately respond to calls for comment.

Of course, pretty much every politician with any sort of national standing, especially a Republican, has probably received donations from Pfizer. After all, the drug company is highly invested in making sure that it has advocates in federal and state legislatures who will fight against health care reform, drug price controls, and the like.

But that’s not going to stop the anti-choice community from making their accusations.

Former Governor and Fox News personality Mike Huckabee will be using his fame and his anti-choice background to raise money for Personhood Mississippi, another “a fertilized egg is a person” action groups trying to change a state constitution to give out rights at the moment of conception.

]]>http://rhrealitycheck.org/article/2011/08/29/huckabee-keynote-personhood-mississippi-event/feed/0What Can You Say About a “Conceived In Rape” Tour?http://rhrealitycheck.org/article/2011/06/02/what-aboutconceived-rape-tour/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=what-aboutconceived-rape-tour
http://rhrealitycheck.org/article/2011/06/02/what-aboutconceived-rape-tour/#commentsThu, 02 Jun 2011 16:04:38 +0000Personhood Mississippi wants fertilized eggs treated like real people so badly they are starting a "rape" tour to push it.

]]>It used to be that the anti-choice activists that advocating forcing women to carry their rapists children were the exception to the rule. But as the anti-abortion faction gets more power in the country, it’s now turning into the rule, not the exception.

To push their agenda that fertilized eggs need to be given the exact same rights as a born, grown human, Personhood Mississippi is starting a campaign sure to catch headlines, if nothing else.

Personhood amendments are constitutional amendments that declare that human life begins at conception, no matter what the circumstances. This human life — no matter what stage of development, including a zygote — has constitutional rights. Terminating the development of a fertilized human egg is akin to murder under personhood amendments. Generally, under personhood amendments, the circumstances of the pregnant women are irrelevant because the fertilized egg has a constitutional right to life.

Under personhood amendments, a woman will not be able to terminate a pregnancy caused by rape.

Proposed personhood amendments failed in Colorado two times. Mississippi will be voting on its own personhood amendment this year. In an effort to promote its cause, Personhood Mississippi has started a “Conceived in Rape” tour featuring Rebecca Kiessling, who says she was conceived by rape and was slated for abortion. Kiessling states on her website,

Have you ever considered how really insulting it is to say to someone, “I think your mother should have been able to abort you.”? It’s like saying, “If I had my way, you’d be dead right now.” And that is the reality with which I live every time someone says they are pro-choice or pro-life “except in cases of rape” because I absolutely would have been aborted if it had been legal in Michigan when I was an unborn child, and I can tell you that it hurts. But I know that most people don’t put a face to this issue — for them abortion is just a concept — with a quick cliche, they sweep it under the rug and forget about it. I do hope that, as a child conceived in rape, I can help to put a face, a voice, and a story to this issue.

In reply, some have said to me, “So does that mean you’re pro-rape?” Though ludicrous, I’ll address it because I understand that they aren’t thinking things through. There is a huge moral difference because I did exist, and my life would have been ended because I would have been killed by a brutal abortion. You can only be killed and your life can only be devalued once you exist. Being thankful that my life was protected in no way makes me pro-rape.

But if her life can only be devalued once she exists, and she only exists because her life was protected from abortion, wouldn’t that mean that if it was ended through abortion, she never would have existed? Isn’t she essentially arguing against herself?